Long After You're Gone
by Mini Kunoichi
Summary: A secret lab in Siberia reveals another survivor of Raccoon City. Held Underground for ten years, can she adjust to the outside world? And what is her connection to Leon? Set in 2008. Title inspired by the song "Gone, Gone, Gone" by Phil Phillips
1. Chapter 1

Usually, when the BSAA got a tip about a potential incident, Chris Redfield hoped it would be a false alarm. That he wouldn't have to go through some small town that was swarming with former residents, or fight off some mutant made from the latest strain of . . . whatever letter of the alphabet they were on now. But this time was different. If he and his team were flying to northern Siberia in search of some remote laboratory, then it had damn well better be worth it.

The info they had on it was scarce. Supposedly, the lab had been up and running since the end of the first outbreaks in Racoon City almost ten years ago, and the lead scientist had ties to Umbrella. And that was it. But the top brass had deemed it significant enough to send in one of their top teams.

Chris looked out of the window as the chopper began its descent, but saw nothing except a vast forest of pine trees. No sign of man-made structures for miles, and nothing to suggest a large-scale scientific operation.

"Are we sure this is the right place?" Piers asked, looking out the window as well.

"This info came directly from Ada Wong," Chris replied.

"I'm not sure I trust anything that comes from that woman," the young sniper grumbled.

"I feel the same way," the captain replied. "But apparently she gave up this intel in some sort of deal with the Russian government."

"We're coming up on the LZ," the pilot said over the headset.

Chris turned to face his team. "Alright everyone, you know the plan. Spread out and search in a five mile radius from the chopper."

Three hours later and Chris hadn't seen anything except a few startled Caribou. He was going to be so pissed if Ada had given them bad intel. He was just about to voice this opinion aloud when his walkie beeped.

"Captain, this is unit Six of Clubs, we've found a small shack that appears to be concealing the entrance to some sort of underground facility."

"Good work. Don't proceed just yet."

"Rodger that."

"All units proceed to coordinates given by Six of Clubs."

The unit gave their coordinates over the radio, and Chis hurried to rendezvous with his team.

It was a shack, alright. About the size of an outhouse, the wooden structure had greyed with time and the elements until it practically blended into the forest around it.

"This doesn't look big enough to hide anything, let alone a secret underground facility," Piers mused.

"Take a look inside," replied one of the men who'd found the place.

Piers nudged the door open. It was empty inside except for a dusting of snow that had blown in under the door. Someone from the team had already swept aside some of the snow, revealing an iron ring bolted to the floor. He bent down to tug on it as Chris entered behind him. The floor lifted to reveal a hole in the ground and a ladder leading down into the darkness. Only one person could descend at a time. Piers looked up at the captain.

"It could be the back entrance," he said.

"I'll head down first and give the all-clear," Chris replied. "Piers, Sasha, you follow. Everyone else, form a line."

Chris descended the metal ladder as quietly as he could manage in his heavy combat boots. It was a good eight or ten feet before he hit the bottom. The room almost reminded him of the foyer of a house. Rather well lit, it was long and narrow with a door at the other end, but just big enough for a small party to safely breech the door. He pulled his pistol and looked for any sign of hostiles. Spotting no one, he pulled out his walkie and gave the all clear.

As ordered, Piers and Sasha were the first two behind him along with four others. The rest of the team waited topside.

Piers's guess about it being a back entrance seemed to be correct. There was no one in the immediate hallway or the one after that. They did, however, scare the shit out of some poor scientist on his coffee break.

"Freeze! BSAA!" Chris barked, aiming his laser sight directly at the man's chest. He was pretty sure he'd never heard a guy scream that high before.

The place was mostly staffed by scientists who didn't really put up a fight. The handful of guards who did try to put up a fight were put down quickly. But the ease of the operation wasn't easing Chris's anxiety. In fact, it was only increasing it. He kept waiting for Lickers, or Tyrants, or some other mutated monstrosity to be released and start mowing down his team. He had all of the scientists and remaining guards were gathered into the largest meeting room. It was time to get some answers.

"Alright, which one of you is in charge?" he asked, scanning the crowd.

An older man in a white lab coat stepped forward nervously. He was maybe sixty years old with grey, thinning hair. The crow's feet around his eyes were pronounced, his cheeks were sunken, and his face looked sallow and pale.

"That would be me," the scientist replied in a reedy baritone. "I'm Dr. David Orcha, the lead researcher at this facility."

"Want to tell me what's going on here, Dr. Orcha?" It wasn't really a question.

"It's better if I show you."

"I'm actually rather grateful that the BSAA showed up," Dr. Orcha said as he lead Chris and Piers down the now vacant hallways. "This particular project has been weighing heavily on my conscious for quite some time."

"How long have you worked here?" Chris asked.

"I've been the lead researcher here since the facility was founded in 1998. Here we are."

Orcha stopped in front of a plain white door without a handle, a biometric scanner on the wall next to it. Chris shot Piers a questioning glance. All the rooms were supposed to have been swept and cleared.

"I know there was one door that the team couldn't enter, Captain. This must be it," the young man said.

The scientist paused with his hand over the scanner. "I know you're with the BSAA, but I have to ask; have the two of you been vaccinated against the T-Virus?"

"We have, but. . . what does that have to do with what's going on here?"

Orcha said nothing. Placing his hand on the scanner instead and waiting while the door slowly slid open. Chris and Piers readied their weapons, but Orcha didn't seem tense at all as he entered the room. Chris didn't know what to expect, but years of experience told him to expect the worst. To expect the bloody, the gruesome, and the violent. But he never expected this.

"David!" a young woman hopped off a cot on the other side of the room and hurried over to the group. Chris placed her somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties. She looked relatively healthy and didn't seem to be afraid of Dr. Orcha.

"I heard shouting and gunfire. . . ." she was saying, eyeing the guns warily.

"It looks like the BSAA finally caught up to us," the doctor explained before turning to the men behind him. "Gentlemen, this is Evelyn King. The world's only known asymptomatic carrier of the T-Virus."

Piers and Chris stood there, dumbfounded, for several moments.

"I'm sorry, what?" Chris finally stammered out.

"Evie is a survivor of the Raccoon City outbreak ten years ago," the doctor started to say.

"That's impossible," Chris cut him off. "They searched for survivors. _I_ searched for survivors. There were only three and they're all accounted for."

"Do you really think Umbrella wouldn't do their own search?" Orcha asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Evie was found in an apartment complex on the west side of the city. She'd been bitten fairly early on in the outbreak, but still wasn't showing signs of infection when the Umbrella team found her several hours later."

"So you kidnapped her?"

"We isolated her to prevent potential future outbreaks."

Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no authority—or training—to make decisions in this kind of a situation. He had phone calls to make. Several phone calls.

Even though Dr. Orcha insisted that Evie wasn't contagious, Chris had her remain in her room. The others in the facility were bound to be charged with several crimes, both in the US and Russia, and Evie would not be among them. Different arrangements had to be made for her.

Currently, he was waiting for the National Security Agency to call him back. It would be several hours, the director had said, before a decision was made. So, Chris decided to visit Evelyn again. She had remained surprisingly calm throughout the whole experience and seemed excited to talk to people who weren't connected to the research center.

"Any news?" Evelyn asked when he walked in.

Chris took the time to take a look around the room. It was a fairly decent size; not spacious, but not cramped either. Bookshelves, stuffed with diverse types of books, lined the wall opposite a very uncomfortable looking cot. A small desk sat against the wall opposite the door. There were books and papers scattered across the surface. A TV stood on top of a dresser next to the desk, angled so you could watch from either the bed or the desk. He couldn't look any further, Evie was waiting for an answer.

"I just talked to the NSA," he said, "It could take some time before they decided what they want to do with you, where you're going to live, that kind of thing."

Evie let out a humorless chuckle, "So it's hurry up and wait, huh?"

"Unfortunately," Chris replied. The room was silent for a long moment. Evelyn was the one who broke it.

"Chris, right?"

His nod signaled for her to continue.

"What year is it?" she asked nervously, wringing her hands.

Chris debated whether it was a good idea to tell her yet. If she'd really been here since the Raccoon City outbreak, the revelation that she'd spent nearly a decade underground could have serious repercussions on her mental health. On the other hand, she seemed to be handling things well so far. He decided it was best to tell her.

"It's two-thousand eight," he said, watching her closely.

"That's ten years," she said quietly, almost to herself.

That's when Chris noticed that Evie hadn't exactly been wringing her hands, she'd been fiddling with a ring on her left hand. It was a thin silver band set with a single, tiny diamond.

"You were engaged," the words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Three weeks," she answered softly, much to Chris's surprise. He really didn't mean to bring up bad memories, especially with all the chaos going on.

"We were engaged for three weeks before it happened," she continued. "He left for his first day of work, and all hell broke loose. I never saw him again."

That surprised Chris for a moment. He knew someone whose first day on the job happened during the outbreak, but he quickly brushed it aside. Raccoon was no metropolis, but it was still rather large by Midwest standards. Any number of people could have been starting their first day of work that day.

"What did he do?" Chris asked, curious now that he knew the topic wouldn't upset her too much. Plus, it kept her mind off the answer to her initial question.

"He was going to be a police officer."

Chris tried to keep his face as neutral as possible, but Evelyn noticed. His eyes widened, his eyebrows raised slightly.

"You know him," she said. It wasn't a question.

"I might be able to . . . figure out what happened to him . . . If you'd like," was his reply. He didn't want to get her hopes up. Just in case. "What was his name?"

Evelyn's expression was a mix of hope and skepticism as she thought about it. Finally, she said;

"His name was Leon. Leon Kennedy."


	2. Chapter 2

Leon woke up wishing he'd taken the time to pick up more scotch from the store the night before. He hadn't had a nightmare for weeks now, he'd told himself. He would be fine for one night. Apparently, he'd lied to himself.

He dragged a hand across his face as he shuffled through his small DC apartment. He grabbed a bowl of cereal from on top of the fridge and was reaching for a bowl when his cell went off. He glanced at the caller ID and groaned before flipping it open.

"It's my day off, Redfield," Leon grumbled, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he continued rummaging through the kitchen.

"I need you to verify some intel," the other man replied. Straight to the point, as always.

"What kind of intel?"

"Does the name Evelyn King ring any bells?"

Leon froze, all thoughts of breakfast forgotten. Hearing her name felt like a punch in the gut. He hadn't heard it in almost ten years.

"Where the hell did you hear that name?" He managed to grind out. Leon had never told anyone about Evie. He'd been too ashamed. What kind of man escaped a zombie infested city without his fiancée? A shitty one, that's who. Ev had deserved so much better than him. If he hadn't been selfish and asked her to marry him, then she wouldn't have even been in Raccoon City that day. She would be alive right now.

"My team just rescued a woman from a lab in Siberia. She told us she's a survivor of Raccoon City and was engaged to a Leon Kennedy. Think you can make a positive ID after ten years?"

"Of course," Leon tried to tamp down his hope. He couldn't afford to get his hopes up. The phone buzzed, and he quickly pulled it from his ear and opened the message.

And the world fell out from under him.

It was her. She'd aged, sure, but there was no doubt in his mind that the woman in the picture was Evie.

Breakfast now completely irrelevant, he turned and stalked back to his bedroom.

"What are your coordinates?" he barked into the phone.

Chris hesitated. "Why?"

"Because I'm coming to pick her up."

"You're just going to hop on a plane and fly to the middle of Siberia?"

"I will once you give me the coordinates."

Chris's sigh sounded like a burst of static.

"You can't come see her," he said finally.

"Bullshit. She's _my_ fiancée! I-"

"That's not what I mean," Chris interrupted before the tirade began. He explained; "The NSA is already making arrangements to transfer her to the US. The best thing you can do for her is to advocate for her from the States. You can see her once she's all set up over there."

"I can't wait that long," Leon replied softly.

"You might have to," the other man replied pragmatically.

"Could you?"

Chis sighed again, all sense of practicality died with two words.

"If it was Jill," Leon pressed. "Would you be able to wait for weeks-or even months-to see her again?"

"That's not fair," Chris grumbled. More to himself than the man on the other end.

"All's fair in love and war, Redfield," Leon replied, back to teasing.

Chris sighed for the third time in two minutes. Something he thought only his team could accomplish.

"Alright, I'll let her know you're on the way. Give her some time to adjust to the fact that you're alive, too."

"Thank you, Chris. I mean it."

"I know."

Leon hung up the call and immediately made another. Hunnigan picked up after a couple of rings.

"Isn't it supposed to be your day off?" she asked with no small amount of surprise. It was unusual for him to call in when he had a rare day off. And if some assignment came up, she was the one who called him.

"Something's come up," Leon said by way of explanation. "I need you to get me a flight to northern Siberia. I've just sent you the coordinates."

Hunnigan raised one elegantly plucked eyebrow. "Why Siberia?"

"It's a long story."

There was a pause while she got things in order. Leon took this time to put the phone on speaker while he got dressed. The familiar clicks from the keyboard stopped.

"Does this have anything to do with the report just submitted by the BSAA?" she asked, getting suspicious. Leon shifted nervously. She wasn't the DSO's best handler for nothing.

"Maybe."

"How do you even know about that?"

"I'll explain later, just get me that flight."

"Is it because she's a survivor of the Raccoon City Incident?" she pressed.

Leon weighed his options. He'd known Hunnigan for several years. She'd been his handler since the mission in Spain and had gotten him out of several seemingly impossible situations. He trusted her.

"She's someone who was very important to me," he replied.

"What? Really?"

"Look, Hunnigan, I need to get there as soon as possible. I'll explain everything on the flight over. Deal?"

She really shouldn't be going along with this, she told herself. On the other hand, this would probably be the most interesting thing to happen all day.

"I sent the flight info to your phone."

"Thanks, Hunnigan. I'll call you once I'm in the air."

"You'd better," she grumbled before hanging up.

Leon shook his head and dialed one more number. He had a favor to call in.

Eighteen hours later, the tiny DSO plane touched down next to the BSAA helicopter that sat in the middle of a giant clearing. Chris was waiting nearby but waited until the plane took off again before speaking.

"Don't tell me I'm stuck with you," he teased, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from turning upward.

"I'm now here officially on behalf of the DSO," Leon explained, grinning back. "I'll also be acting as Evie's guardian until she's officially back from the dead."

"What about her next of kin?" Chris asked.

"I'm the closest thing she's got, unfortunately. Her parents died a couple years back. Which I'm going to have to tell her. Damn."

"Not all fun and games like you thought?"

"I knew this wasn't going to be easy. For either of us."

Chris shrugged and led him to the camouflaged shack and down to the tunnels before he spoke again.

"So, how'd you two meet?"

"At a college frat party, actually."

"Seriously?" Chris chuckled.

"I was kind of a partier when I was younger," he shrugged. "Anyway, a friend of mine invited me to this frat party, and about halfway through, one of the fraternity members comes up and asks us if we want in on a betting pool."

"Please tell me this ends with Evelyn beating you in a drinking contest."

"She probably could have back then, but no. Evie apparently had a reputation of turning guys down on dates."

"Not a bad reputation to have," Chris interrupted again.

"Are you going to let me finish?" Leon grumbled.

"Right. Sorry," he replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

"Anyway, I don't remember how much it was, but the first guy to get Evie to actually go on a date with him won the pot."

"So what'd you do? Use the classic Leon Kennedy charm?"

"Actually, I just walked up to her and told her about the bet. We went to lunch the next day. I won the bet and she got free food. Which is practically gold to poor college students."

"I can't tell if that's the cutest thing I've ever heard, or the dumbest," Chris laughed. "But why lunch and not dinner?"

"So she knew I didn't have any ulterior motives. If we both had classes to get to, then she didn't have to worry about me trying to get in her pants."

"Leon Kennedy _not_ trying to get into a girl's pants? You really have changed."

"Shut up, Redfield."

 **There's a LOT of talking in this chapter. It's very reminiscent of my old, cringy, writing style. I tried to think of the dumbest way that Leon and Evie could've started dating, but was also very college student-like. And if you've ever been a college student, free food is the shit lol.**


End file.
